You Never Thoroughly Intended It

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I read quite a lot, both for pleasure and for my theological studies. Every so often, I read something that stops me dead in my tracks and affects me so deeply that I have to put the book down and consider what I've just read. No author has done that as powerfully and frequently as C.S. Lewis. Today, I want to share one of those moments with you and explore how we can apply it to our relationship with Jesus. (In fairness, these are not his own words - Lewis was quoting William Law). He wrote:

If you will stop here and ask yourselves why you are not as pious as the primitive Christians were, your own heart will tell you, that it is neither through ignorance nor inability, but purely because you never thoroughly intended it.

If we consider Christianity to be a life-long journey, then surely the destination is a perfect and complete union with Christ. We begin the journey by not knowing Christ at all and it is complete when we have surrendered to Christ so fully and completely that nothing of ourselves remains.

If we stop to take a look at the things which prevent us from reaching that goal, it will appear that there are hundreds of little things on the journey which block our way. Work, friends, community and family responsibilities all present obstacles. We're so busy!

The truth that Lewis brings to our attention is that there are not many reasons, but rather one simple reason which underlies it all. If you don't have the kind of passion and intimacy in your relationship with Christ that you should then you don't fully intend to. You see, the quality of your relationship with Christ is all in your hands and no one else's. This is not like a marriage where both husband and wife must work to achieve closeness. Christ is and has always been completely accessible and available. He waits patiently for us to take each next step toward Him. You either take the steps or you don't.

Every reason you can imagine for why you have not taken the next step on the journey can be distilled down to one simple fact - you don't want to. There is no secret or magic formula here. It's simple. We come closer to Christ by spending time with Him, reading His word, serving Him and praying. None of us are being physically prevented or restrained from doing these things and so the choice to do them or not to do them is ours alone.

Yet, we do other things instead. We watch TV, put in a little overtime at work, visit with friends or any other myriad of things that are more important to us at that given moment. It's a given that there are things we must do to survive such as eating and working in order to make money to pay for our food and shelter. Jesus understands this. Yet, there is so much that we do not need to do. All that time we could be working on our relationship with Jesus. But we don't.

I'm busy! I have work to do! I'm tired! Wrap the excuse any way you wish and surround it by any reason you like but when you unwrap it, what you will find inside every time is the same basic truth. You don't intend to have a better relationship with Jesus.

The relationship you have with Jesus is exactly the one you want to have. When you want to have a closer, deeper relationship with Him, you will. Nothing in this world can prevent it.